Murdered nurses were tied to tree for days, inquest told

Peter Hardwick
Reporter
Peter started in 1976 as apprentice typesetter/comp and has 32 years with The Chronicle in three stints (in between working/holidays in UK/Europe, Brisbane and Melbourne). Entered editorial from comp room in 1996.

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Trevor Hilton at the inquest into the unsolved murders of nurses Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans.Bev Lacey

UPDATE: A woman who Donald "Donnie" Laurie lived with for four or five weeks in the late 1970s said she was sitting watching a crime show about the murders on television with him when he made some "shocking" admissions to her.

The Courier Mail reports that Betty Staib, who gave evidence to the Toowoomba inquest via phone, said Donnie Laurie told her things he "would have had to have actually been there" to know.

She said Donnie Laurie told her he had wanted to give the women water when they were tied to a tree at Murphys Creek for two or three days.

"I was in shock and said 'how did you know that, Laurie?'," Ms Staib said.

EARLIER: A 1970s Toowoomba gang accused of the murders of Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans were known to be violent men who regularly abducted young women, forced them into their cars and took them into the bush to rape them.

Trevor Hilton, uncle of prime suspect Wayne "Boogie" Hilton, told the coronial inquest into the deaths of the two women Wayne Hilton had grown up with him.

Wayne Hilton, who died in a car accident in the mid-1980s, had been a part of group of men including Allan John "Shorty" Laurie, Donny Laurie, Allan Neil "Ungie" Laurie, Terrence "Jimmy" O'Neill and Larry Charles who used to hang around in Ruthven St from 5pm, assaulting and grabbing women and forcing them into cars, sometimes "chucking" them into the boot, he said.

Though implicated by an ex-girlfriend in the murders himself, Trevor Hilton was not a person of interest as he had been in jail at the time of the murders in October 1974.

He said he didn't mix with the group who called him "Black Hilton" and regularly bashed him.

One of the last known photographs of Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans taken not long before their murders in bushland near Toowoomba in 1974.The Chronicle Archives

"They were very violent people," he told the court.

He said he had seen the group assault women in the street as he walked between the Settlers Inn and Moffatt (new Delaceys) hotels.

"Everyone in the town knew what was going on," he said.

"I don't know why it wasn't stopped in them days."

He said no-one did anything to stop the group and that Wayne Hilton had told him that the gang would take girls out in the bush and rape them.

The skeletal remains of Lorraine Wilson, 20, and Wendy Evans, 18, were found in thick bushland at the foot of the Toowoomba Range off Murphys Creek Rd in 1976.

They had been clubbed to death.

The two friends were hitch hiking from Brisbane making their way back to Sydney when they disappeared.

Darryl Sutton has given evidence at the inquest into the unsolved murders of two Sydney nurses Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans.AAP Image/Dave Hunt

Photos

His Fairlane's headlights were on high-beam and he recognised Wayne Hilton struggling with a woman at the back of the car.

As he swerved around the Holden, he saw another man struggling with a woman at the front of the car, he said.

Asked had he considered stopping to help the girls, Mr Stieler said because he was on his own and knew Wayne Hilton had been in a fair bit of trouble, he kept going.

He put the incident down to a "sort of domestic argument" and so didn't contact police.

It was only after seeing the photographs of the two nurses on a television program in 1999 that he recognised Wendy Evans as being the woman struggling with Hilton that night.

Anthony Doherty was working in Brisbane with the Department of the Auditor General and was travelling on Ipswich Rd on October 6, 1974, when he pulled over near the Oxley Hotel so his wife could go to the shops.

As he sat in his car, he saw a man sitting in a light green EH Holden with a white hood and a woman he later believed to be Wendy Evans come out of a shop, place a suitcase on the ground and sit on it.

A second woman he now believes to be Lorraine Wilson then came out of the shop followed by a man.

He said the two women had a verbal exchange and he heard Lorraine say words to the effect: "Please come, let's go."

He said Wendy replied "No, I don't want to".

Lorraine had then said "I'm going to go whether you come or not".

He said Wendy then "reluctantly" picked up her bag and got into the back seat of the car.

The car then did a "wheelie" spraying stones onto Mr Doherty's car and the two men and women then sped away on Ipswich Rd toward Ipswich.

Trevor Hilton leaves the coronial inquest to be greeted by the media.Bev Lacey

After reading that the women's' bodies had been found in 1976, Mr Doherty contacted the Brisbane Police headquarters and asked to speak to a detective about what he had seen.

He was told no detectives were available and was put through to a duty sergeant.

He said the sergeant told him he was wrong because the girls had been heading back to Sydney along the Pacific Hwy and that they had been seen in Holland Park.

In 1989, after another sighting of the women in Oxley came to light, Mr Doherty contacted Toowoomba police and made a statement.